1-22-08 Breaking News. Cesar Laurean has been sighted in Mexico.
Update 1-18-08 3:24 p.m. Police are saying that they have received a credible tip that Cesar Laurean may be out west according to Onslow County Sheriff’s Captain Rick Sutherlin. Since he is from the Las Vegas area, it’s entirely possible that he tried to go back home looking for some place to hide.
Police have also revised her date of death, stating that they believe Maria Lauterbach was killed on the day she disappeared, December 14th rather than the 15th as they had originally thought.

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Updated 1-17-08 8:30 p.m. In an affidavit Christina Laurean has said that she was at a Christmas party the late afternoon and evening that Maria Lauterbach was murdered and that her husband did not attend the party.

North Carolina Third District Representative Walter Jones has written a letter to Mexican President Felipe Calderon urging him to use any means necessary to help U.S. law enforcement bring Corporal Laurean to justice. The contents of the letter are as follows:

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Dear President Felipe Calderon:

I am writing regarding the search for Cpl. Cesar Armando Laurean, the suspected murderer of U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach and her unborn son.

On January 11, 2008, Cpl. Cesar Armando Laurean, 21, disappeared from his Jacksonville, North Carolina, home shortly before police discovered the charred remains of Marine Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach buried in his backyard. Lauterbach had previously accused Laurean of raping her, telling Marine officials she was pregnant with his child; she was eight months pregnant when she went missing in December 2007.

Federal authorities now believe that Laurean has fled to Mexico. I strongly urge you to use whatever resources available to you to locate and apprehend Laurean as quickly as possible.

Should Laurean be apprehended in Mexico, there is clear precedent, consistent with both U.S. and Mexican law, for extraditing Laurean back to the U.S. Once Laurean is apprehended, I ask that you work with U.S. authorities to come to an agreement that will ensure his swift return to the U.S.

The murders of Cpl. Maria Lauterbach and her unborn son cannot go unpunished. The victims, the Lauterbach family and the people of North Carolina demand that justice be served for this heinous and disturbing crime.

Again, I urge you to use all means necessary to assist U.S. authorities in bringing Laurean into custody and to justice.

Updated January 17th 3:59pm – A police affidavit shows that Cesar Laurean and his wife Christina consulted an attorney on January 9th, the day before he fled. The lawyer told Laurean that he could be facing the death penalty. The very next day he took off and his wife appeared at the Onslow County Sheriff’s Office with her attorney and a Sergeant from her former chain of command. At that time she gave police several notes she had found in the house from Cesar Laurean. According to prior reports I am wondering if perhaps he actually left earlier than his wife Christina has said. If he and his wife met with an attorney then that pretty much seals it that she knew of the murder and helped him plan his getaway. Did they set it up so that she turned over evidence in order to get out of charges? This at the very least makes her an accessory to the crime, even if after the fact, or perhaps she is just guilty of obstruction of justice.

Laurean has sent two letter to his wife since he fled, both postmarked from Houston, Texas.

Along with the affidavit there is a warrant to search Western Union records as well. Laurean and his wife Christina received a transfer of money between December 10th and January 12th. The affidavit doesn’t give any further details about the money transfer.

Authorities also discovered last week the weapon used to kill Maria Lauterbach but won’t disclose what that weapon is. According to ABC the Jacksonville Daily News has cited severeal sources that say it was a crowbar. It was handed over to police by a witness last week.

According to the Houston Chronicle, Christina Laurean did know about the death of Maria Lauterbach. Laurean told his wife that Lance Corporal Lauterbach visited their home on December 15th, told him that she planned to leave the area and demanded money. Laurean and Lauterbach bought a bus ticket for her to go to El Paso but he said that Lauterbach then returned to their hom and started to argue. That’s when she supposedly produced a knife and slit her own throat. We know that to not be true since he bashed her freaking head in.

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Updated 8:38 p.m. – According to CNN a woman that used to work with Corporal Cesar Laurean said that he is extremely innovative and described ‘McGyver’ type skills (referring to the television show) and training that would enable him to survive and adapt to life on the run. The woman, who asked to remain anonymous, left the Marine Corps in December and described Laurean as well-trained to adapt to his situation. She also called Laurean quiet but social, with many friends who spoke often of his 18-month-old daughter.

She also said that she had been friends with Lauterbach for about four years and that they were employeed in the Personnel Department at Camp LeJeune.

The friend said that Lauterbach confided in her and told her she had consensual sex with Laurean and that a verbal argument had occurred and that the rape happened in Laurean’s office at Camp LeJeune.

The un-named woman also claims that Lauterbach told her that she was afraid of Laurean and HAD sought another protective order in September from her when the first one expired. She was also considering withdrawing the rape allegations because she felt that Marine Officials weren’t taking her seriously.

The woman also says that there is no way that Lauterbach and Laurean had a continuing relationship after the rape, which disputes what Marine officials are saying.

Updated at 4:15 p.m. – According to WRAL out of North Carolina the FBI has said that they have tracked him as far as Texas and that regardless of my update below, he may actually have made it to Mexico. Authorities are not announcing how they tracked him to Texas or Mexico but agents have been dispatched to Mexico to try and find him. According to FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko “The FBI, working with our law enforcement partners suspect, but have not confirmed, that Cesar Laurean may have fled to Mexico. This is an ongoing matter and we will work with our law enforcement partners in Mexico to determine if he is there and if so, to locate and apprehend him”

Updated at 3:35 p.m. – The FBI now says that it is working with Mexican authorities to find and arrest Laurean if he is in Mexico. I just finished reading a couple of threads over at LeJeune Underground and I posted this over there: Although I have been posting the news on this, I honestly think that he’s still in the U.S. He is most likely somewhere in the southeast, particularly considering that he left his truck in the area. Either that means that he did catch the Greyhound, leading to the possibility that the ‘sighting’ in Louisiana was real, caught a ride from a friend (plenty of guys were coming home from MOS graduation. My son caught a bus Friday at the same station where Maria Lauterbach purchased her ticket) or is still in the area. I personally think he’s holed up in an empty apartment or barracks or has killed himself in remorse for the awful misdeeds he has done.

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According to CNN the FBI now suspects that Cesar Laurean has fled to Mexico. Cesar is sought in connection with the murder of Maria Lauterbach, the eight-month-pregnant Marine enlisted who was missing back in December and finally found dead just last week. According to ABC News FBI agents and officials have leads indicating that he may have med it to Mexico.

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At this point in time we strongly suspect but have not confirmed that Laurean fled to Mexico

FBI

Cesar Laurean is a naturalized U.S. Citizen who is a native of Guadalajara, Mexico. He lived in the Las Vegas area prior to joining the United States Marine Corps. Investigators are not ruling out the chance that he may still be in the United States but the FBI legal attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico has been notified. He became a U.S. citizen in 2003.

It’s not currently known if Laurean kept his Mexican citizenship but he does apparently have family there.

His picture and an alert are currently posted on the FBI’s web site and electronic billboards are being rolled out all over the country. The FBI feels that if they can get as many people out here with their eyes open they have a much better chance to catch Laurean.

12 Comments to "Cesar Laurean in Mexico? He Spoke With Attorney Before He Fled"

So do you think they ought to arrest the wife? I mean, c’mon, seriously blood spattered house, recently painted. Large, guilty looking bare spot in the back yard….. Yes she turned over a letter (full of B.S.), but it doesn’t sound like she’s been too cooperative really. If she HAD been cooperative, her house would be wired for sound and the police would KNOW whether or not he’s made contact!
I am going to be completely and utterly disgusted if this guy succeeds in blaming this very lovely young woman (and unborn child) for her own demise, playing the I’m-just-a-stupid-male-and-she-was-asking-for-it sympathy card, and gets off on manslaughter or something equally heinous.
So where are the other Marines who harassed and keyed the car of the deceased? Are they free to come and go, as if nothing has happened?? I hope the Marine Corp takes this seriously, because I know of a couple of very good men who are no doubt spinning in their graves right now.

I do think the wife is involved. It’s possible that she was an accessory after the fact and it may be that she reached a deal with the police prior to turning over her information. I just don’t know yet. I do know that she came forward as soon as he disappeared and am sure that the police are still watching her every move.
I don’t see him getting off on any kind of reduced charge now. Since her head was bashed in with a blunt instrument that pretty much does away with the suicide defense. It’s pretty damned hard to pick up something heavy enough to bash your head in and then proceed to do it. Try it and you’ll see what I mean.
I am sure that if she actually reported the harassment they were dealt with. That is if she actually reported it to anyone besides her family. The Marine Corps can’t take care of harassment if they don’t know about it. Why wouldn’t they be free to come and go if they have been punished. They certainly aren’t the ones that killed her. Harassment of any kind is a serious matter and there has to be consequences but jail is a bit far-fetched just because someone is an asshole.

Yes, he’s in Mexicohttp://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/01/22/missing.marine/index.html
Also the Death Penalty is now out:
“Hudson said he has asked through the State Department that Laurean be arrested if he is found in Mexico. But he said he had “no other option” but to take the death penalty off the table if Laurean is found there.
Mexico has a longstanding record of refusing to extradite suspects to the United States if they face a possible death sentence upon conviction. Video Watch what cousin has to say about Cpl. Cesar Laurean »
“I had to agree not to seek the death penalty,” Hudson said. “My hands were tied if I wanted to bring him here to face murder charges.”
He added, “It was very frustrating and disappointing.””

Many things don’t make sense….
I have noticed reading online, it was mentioned that she went to his house and that she left a note at her house and took some things. If you think about it, Laurean could have gone ro her house and promised her he was leaving his wife or say something that she would believe in order to leave a note and/or pack her things. Or maybe he left the note and packed her things trying to make it look like it was her. She wouldn’t go to his house, which doesn’t make sense and for her to slit her own throat after she bought ticket to El Paso. Didn’t anyone in the neighborhood see anything different or odd, different cars parked there, different men/people? Maybe someone she worked with is from El Paso. For her to go to Laurean’s house someone had to have been with her. Laurean told his wife Lauterbach came over to tell him she was leaving. Lauterbach accused him of raping her, she wouldn’t go to his house to say something stupid like that and then slit her throat! His wife may believe it, but I don’t!
The ticket was bought for El Paso TX, she doesn’t have relatives there, but he might. He might have friends there to help him hide! Laurean could have told lauterbach to go there and he will follow or something. Was there video camera’s that showed it was her not Laurean not his wife or someone else pretending to be her? Or maybe that was his plan to make it look like she went AWOL. At 7/8mo pregnant, you are not able to fly and shouldn’t be able to take a bus, sitting for many hours is not good. There had to be video camera’s around the Greyhound, they should be looking everywhere maybe he was there with her or someone else telling her what to do. The clerk said he saw her drive off and didn’t see anyone with her, but then it was mentioned her car had been there ever since Dec 14. Again there should be video camera’s to see who was driving.
When Sgt. Durham got home and got the note, he said he called her sister and took it to his superiors, but it took the mother to report her missing 5 days later. That doesn’t make sense, if he called her sister wouldn’t that make her call her mom to report her missing or call the next day for that 24hr mark? Wouldn’t the military say she was AWOL? My husband is AD, when someone doesn’t show up for work, or they leave a note and/or suicide note they are considered AWOL ASAP and a search begins to look for them. Maybe Marines are different, or maybe he didn’t tell anyone. For the note, Laurean could have wrote or anyone else for that matter. He worked with her everyday, he had enough time to practice her writing.
I think he planned everything and his wife knew about it or was in on it. She could have told him she didn’t believe he didn’t rape Laurean and wanted him to prove it? Or to prove how much she loves her (his wife) by killing lauterbach. Here they are married and both active duty, it would be odd for only one to show up to a party. People had to be asking where he was at, wonder what his wife told them? And is it the same info she told the police? So after the party she went home? Wouldn’t there be blood on ceiling? Wouldn’t she have noticed the backyard? How can you sleep in a house after you know your spouse just killed someone in your home? Here she painted the livingroom, so she is helping her husband cover up evidence and she helped helped him disappear. Who cares if she is helping the police, she should be charged with accessory to murder. She knows more than she is telling the police. She knows where he is going. Where was their daughter in all of this?
Here he is in Mexico saw his cousin. His cousin said Laurean came to his store, they talked for a few minutes, but Laurean said he had to go cuz he had friends waiting for him outside. Who were these friends? Did the cousin know his friends, or see them? His friends are helping him hide.
It was mentioned they had a BBQ with friends over. Now was it the same friends that helped hide the body, helped kill her, keyed her car, etc. All the reports she filed whatever happend to them? Did Laurean have friends to get rid of the reports? Why wasn’t her case taken seriously? Did anyone ever investigate? Take pictures of her keyed car?

Some of them don’t make sense, maybe one or two of the items I can clear up.
Although she had accused him of raping her, if he had offered her money or some other type of settlement she might have been willing to go meet with him, or he may have forced her to go to her house. It was mentioned in a couple of stories that she went to his house, left to buy the bus ticket, and then returned to the house. I personally think that he forced her to buy the ticket.
Video cameras at Greyhound? Have you ever ridden Greyhound? The station in Atlanta might or might not have a couple but there certainly aren’t any cameras in the terminal area. and there are so many people you wouldn’t have seen anything anyway. Greyhound stations, while favored by a lot of the military for it’s cheapness (that’s how my son and most of his buddies got back and forth from home to Camp LeJeune) it is favored by quite a few of the ‘unwashed masses’. Bums, homeless, jobless, people down on their luck, etc. Each of the stations in metropolitan areas have quite a few homeless and bums hanging around asking for handouts and smokes. The last time I picked up my son it was pouring down rain and cold and there were still 15-20 of them wandering around asking for change.
The military did say she was missing and did look for her. While they do search and check their living premises, the don’t generally go out and comb the countryside looking for bodies. It happens too often for them to do something like that.
From everything I have read, his wife wasn’t in on it until after the fact. I have wondered myself why she wasn’t in jail. She did help paint over the blood, she had to know that the girl had been killed in her house. It is entirely possible that she believed the girl had killed herself there as Laurean said, at least initially. Since he had been accused of rape several months before, it is probable that he had been filling his wife with lies for several months. If he kept referring to the ‘crazy girl’, then suicide is just one more step down that road. As far as no charges being filed, I have to assume that she has been given immunity in exchange for her testimony against him.
The cousin didn’t say there were any friends. He said that Laurean claimed to be there with friends, obviously he lied.
I haven’t read anything about a BBQ, do you have a link to that so that I can see what they have to say?

I meant to answer the last part as well, about the rape.
All of the reports are still there. Nobody has reported them missing and nobody has gotten rid of them. While the Marines could have moved a bit faster on it, civil rape cases sometimes move even slower. The prosecution and defense take forever to have their cases ready. From what I understand, she complained about harrasment on the base, as well as having her car keyed, as you mention. I don’t know that she took pictures of the car but other than filing a police report, what are you going to do about having your car keyed? Shit happens and there’s no way of figuring out who keyed your car.
According to the Naval investigators there was no evidence to support her claim of rape, but her regimental commander felt like there was enough for a hearing. Perhaps he felt that just the way Laurean acted would be enough to prove that he raped her. Either way, the hearing was moving forward and was actually scheduled to take place shortly after she was reported missing, one of the reasons Laurean may have acted when he did.

The report of the BBQ is all over the internet, the next door neighbor is the one credited with that. Here is one link:http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=58604&page=4
Why don’t guys ever take the harassment thing seriously? You always get harassed during these things, it’s to beat you down, discredit you in the eyes of other people, and to isolate you. That way the guy gets to have his cake, eat it too, and rub your face in it for good measure. It’s as predictable as the tides.
I’m telling you, this POS is going to get away with this, you watch! Oh well, there’s always the guys in prison…. Hope he drops his soap a lot!!
Another thing, when you are 8 months along and sick a lot of the time you don’t just go trotting off alone with people who have a history of harming you. That girl would have been taken by force. I hate to say it but I think the timing also has a bit to do with catching her at a vulnerable stage. He’s kind of short and seems to be a bit of a pack animal.
Christina is 24, right? He’s 21? Their daughter is 18 months? So she had a few years on him at a critical stage, and he doesn’t seem to have acclimatized too well here anyway if he actually thought that he could do this and no-one would notice. In Mexico girls vanish all the time and no-one says anything (Well nothing except to blame Chupacabra). Christina should have put a halt to this a LONG time ago, instead it looks like she just went along and tried to cover it all up. Bit short sighted, don’t you think?

Somebody is helping this guy, oh! yes! Besides the trainig that he has, he is getting well there in Mexico. Who is giving him money? What kind of ID’s he has? Does he posses a Mexican Passport? Whit hat he can fly to anywhere outside of Mexico to another Spanish speaking country and work in labor jobs. How old he was when he moved to US? Where is his family? They will help him to get away with this, bealive me. They wont care if he is guilty.

I agree with you Karla. Somebody is definitely helping him.
Thanks for the links Vicki. It was a pretty long week at work so I have bookmarked them. I like the websleuth’s board, going to have to spend some time over there.